Let’s say zero is straight up shutting your ears, going lalala and storming out of the room, let’s say 10 is sitting down with a Nazi, genuinely making an effort to see things from their point of view just to see if you could.
Sure this may sound ridiculous but it’s basic knowledge that studying your opponents viewpoints is the best way to counter them and get new insight yourself.
Me? Id like to think I’m a 6, I don’t cut family ties over their political opinions but I’m very likely to shut that down with a “I don’t want to speak politics with you”
Lemmy can be an echo chamber sometimes, but that doesn’t mean everyone here is a mindless zombie, how do you all deal with others who believe differently? Can you back it up?
“opposing viewpoints” is too broad a term for the question to be meaningful.
It could mean everything from “Discovery is the best Star Trek series” to “Women aren’t real people”, and the details of the viewpoint in question are EXTREMELY relevant to your ability to empathize with it.
I’ll say it’s a 6-9 depending on my mood.
Sure this may sound ridiculous but it’s basic knowledge that studying your opponents viewpoints is the best way to counter them and get new insight yourself.
I don’t think this is necessarily empathy. I’ve read Hitler, Ilyin and Dugin, understood their arguments and point of view. If anything it made me less empathetic to them, seeing their vile hatred spilled on paper like that; but I agree that it is useful in practice to understand people who hate your guts.
To me, empathy means not only understanding the individual’s viewpoint, but moreso understanding how they got to it. This is how I can still slightly emphasize with any awful individuals, from nazis to billionaires: I understand that their viewpoint was formed by their position in the capitalist hellscape we fine ourselves in, and by incessant capitalist propaganda. If I was born in their stead and lived through their experiences, I would likely share similar ideas. This makes me more hopeful in the possibility of reform even for the worst of the worst; if a person was convinced of something, they can be convinced that it is wrong too; noone is born a nazi, and so noone is beyond hope in my opinion.
As for my family, they can be incessantly racist and homophobic, not to mention all the various small things like climate change conspiracies etc. I politely disagree with them and try to nudge them towards more inclusivity and empathy for others; we’ve never had a screaming argument despite holding very different opinions about things so dear to my heart. But yeah at times, especially when I’m in a bad mood, I also just shut down political conversations with them.
10 - I can feel empathy for every human being. That doesn’t mean that I’ll accept their views, and if they are someone who would hurt others, I will certainly stop them - even with force. That’s empathy too…
Do you know what empathy is? How you practice it? How you train it?
If I’m physically safe, I think between 8 and 10 depending on my energy level. If I’m threatened or hurt in a fight, still up to 8 at least. We can love our enemies and still fight them with all the force necessary (but no more).
I think if you don’t feel safe at that point, it’s less of a debate and more of a situation that you should feel. No shame in leaving
One problem with empathizing with others’ viewpoints, truly, is realizing a lot of them have downright evil motivations. So, empathizing should make you despise them.
Often this “evil” like hate is born out of fear or some other vulnerability so you can find the underlying emotion and emphasize with that instead. Oh the other hand, what I find really hard to emphasize with in people with fascist viewpoints is their lack of empathy. Like when they are not acting out of being afraid or hurt or anything, just really clinging to privilege and being indifferent towards racialized people.
For me it’s like they’re using 12 year old reasoning and it’s easy to intuit that’s by choice. It’s something I associate with tourists especially who want to weaponize cluelessness and hospitality if they are Evil evil
Me? Id like to think I’m a 6, I don’t cut family ties over their political opinions but I’m very likely to shut that down with a “I don’t want to speak politics with you”.
I’d say that’s 3 or low 4. I think you need to define the middle stages of this scale more clearly.
If I’ve had enough time to wake up and I’m not upset about something else (and I think the only thing that really upsets me by now is a random argument with my wife or my mom), and if I determine you’re not arguing in bad faith but actually being entirely frank, probably a 9 or 10?
IME, evil people are rare, and what you’ll find more often than not is that they’re either slow or just straight up insane, so I can’t just go around being THE antisocial prick when people are simply sharing their mind without consciously trying to be hurtful, misleading or disruptive.
9.5 However, just because I can doesn’t mean I have to. I had discussions with a traditional Nazi, with an antisemite, with Corona deniers, … I’ve studied philosophy which teaches you to take other viewpoints to understand the inconsistencies.
But doing it for a long time is extremely exhausting which is why I refuse to discuss renewable energy with my father; who’s not categorically wrong on that topic but narrow minded and only educates himself as much as needed to believe some convenient half-truths.
0 because we dont have to coexist. People should be free to live how they want. Unfortunately we all know that auths cant handle people being free and will always come a knocking.
If only I could leave this planet and leave humanity to the silly little games they play with each other’s lives.
It depends on what you mean by viewpoint.
If they’re disagreeing about objective reality, 0/10. If we can’t agree on an objective level, there’s no point.
If they’re disagreeing about following the social contract of tolerance, -10/10. They break the contract, they aren’t covered by it, they should be removed with prejudice.
If they’re disagreeing about the value of certain concepts, solutions or programs, 3/10? I’d talk to someone about something for a little while, I might give them a reference, but it’s not my job to educate them.
Of course just talking to people, I’m like a 5/10 in general…
If they’re disagreeing about objective reality
I always enjoy hearing about how people come to believe what they do. There’s pretty much always a logical basis for it and the difference just comes down to their heuristics failing at one particular point and cascading.
It depends on what you mean by viewpoint. If they’re disagreeing about objective reality, 0/10. If we can’t agree on an objective level, there’s no point.
This is pretty much the crux of the problem right here. How are you supposed to have any kind of productive conversation about the world if they are living in a fictional one that doesn’t actually exist?
5
7.5/10. I find that most people I encounter, even if they support causes against those which I support, would agree with my viewpoints, as long as I don’t say “socialism”. That is an unfortunate consequence of being raised in an environment of capitalist realism.
Where’s the other 2.5 points? I’ll happily listen to my opponents recount the life experiences and thought processes that make them oppose my viewpoints. But for my own sanity, I refuse to engage with those who merely throw attacks at me.
I back off from arguing on the internet in general, also for my own sanity.
So a general view I’m seeing here is, “sure if it remains civil”, what if it gets tense? These are tough issues after all. How far do you think you can tip that scale before it becomes an argument? I would agree that yes once name calling happens we have stopped debating and started arguing.
Hard to say personally since I can’t remember the last time I had a real-life conversation go tense. I’ll entertain some pretty wild thoughts, but once the other party centers the debate over emotion at the expense of evidence, I’d say that’s the point I start losing patience.
7.5
One time I had a conversation with a friend who said they would vote for Trump. We don’t even live in America, I asked him why and he said “well he seems more honest and real.” Other times I try and talk to Zionists, and the genuine hatred for Palestinian people is insane, and intolerable, and they got loud and angry when I made reasonable, good points.
Out of 10, if they don’t get angry and loud, like a 6 on average, if they are just uneducated, like an 8?
10
Unrelated to the specific question you asked but you would probably enjoy reading They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer. The author befriended ten nazis after the war and writes about what he learned from that.
Like a 3 or 4 LMAO. I’m pretty set in my ways, I’m willing to hear most people out but only in an effort to change someone else’s mind, not really to change my own. That said, if you are on the left (i.e. identify as anti-capitalist, at minimum), then I will legitimately take your perspective and stances into consideration.
This doesn’t mean that I’m not empathetic or that I shut people down, I’m very conflict averse as well. I just take in what people say, push back maybe a little, and try to understand their perspective while mine still remains unchanged.
6
